Nimrod wrote:This is an Amsterdam forum about cannabis and coffeeshops. You're only asking for trouble by discussing volatile politics around here. Surely you can find an online forum where others are waiting to sink their political fangs into your tender flesh.
This may be a topic for debate in itself. I added an off topic section to the forum very early on because I fancied discussing subjects such as politics. You may be right that discussing contentious topics could cause bad feeling that could spill over into the rest of the forum. Something to keep an eye on for sure.
Having said that, I too have Syria on my mind.
My starting point is of being a pacifist. Idealism aside, though, there's already a civil war going on there so the question is would getting involved help or make the situation worse?
For a start with it's not a simple war between two sides. There are several parties involved on the ground and many more outside using the protagonists as proxies. As I understand it, the opposition is made up of the Free Syrian Army and various jihadist groups including some allied to al-Qaeda. The government is supported by the likes of Iran and Russia whilst the rebels are supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and USA so there is a proxy war going on between traditional enemies across the Gulf and between East and West. There is also a sectarian, Sunni versus Shiite, element going on too. It's very complicated.
If the West intervenes on behalf of the rebels they could finish up assisting al-Qaeda. That would be ironic to say the least!
As for the chemical attack, I think it's probable that the Syrian government was responsible, but I'm by no means certain.
When I saw the video clips I was immediately reminded of the Kuwait incubators story. If you don't remember this, when Iraq invaded Kuwait back in 1990 there was a story put about that they had stolen all of the baby incubators from Kuwait and taken them back to Bagdad, leaving the occupant babies to die. The story caused outrage around the world and helped to galvanise opinion that force should be used to expel Iraq from Kuwait. It later became apparent that the story was entirely false and acted out by members of the Kuwaiti royal family. (Google it).
The scope for emotional manipulation in this age of 24-hour news and CGI is even greater now than it was in 1990.
On the one hand we know that the Syrian government has stocks of chemical weapons (unlike Iraq) and they were reluctant to allow inspectors in to see the sites of the attacks, which, at the very least, looks suspicious. On the other hand, the USA has told Syria that they can kill as many of their own citizens as they like by shelling, bombing and shooting them but if they use chemical weapons there would be trouble. That actually gives a much stronger motive for the rebels to use such weapons if they managed to acquire them. In such a complicated war, with players such as the Gulf States and Israel involved, just about anything is possible. If any part of the true story emerges in the future we may be shocked. I'm not proposing any kind of conspiracy theory here, just saying that some healthy scepticism may be appropriate.
As I said, I'm a pacifist, so my instinct is to abhor violence. In spite of this I can see that to allow the Syrian government to get away with using chemical weapons, if indeed it was them, would set a terrible precedent. It's not obvious what to do about it though. The Americans can't just blow up the chemical storage facilities because, presumably, that would just spread them around and cause more carnage. There is also the danger of simply opening up the stores so that anyone could grab the chemical agents.
A punitive attack bombing government buildings or whatever could lead to all sorts of unintended consequences. The Syrian government might decide that they have nothing to loose and start throwing all of their chemical weapons around. The Americans would then feel that they had to hit them harder and a spiral would begin leading to who knows what.
Bringing down the Syrian government may also not be desirable because the replacement may be worse and the stocks of chemical weapons, plus any weapons supplied by the Gulf States and the USA could finish up in the hands of al-Qaeda.
In conclusion then, I'm glad I'm not one of the politicians who will have to decide how to react. Phrases including rocks and hard places come to mind.
